Saturday, February 5, 2011

Training Issues - February 5, 2011

The first three days of the month started off well; mostly. With slightly nicer weather (dry but a little cooler) and maybe the turning of a new month, I saw a lot more riders out. Not approaching the summer volume, but more then none. The upside to this is, they add to my safety; more bikes, better driver awareness. The downside is they are taking me off of my pace.

Tuesday, I caught two out of three (the third one turned before I could pass them, but I would have caught them within the mile), including one on a multi-geared road bike that was moving along pretty well. I had to wait until a long uphill to draw down on them. And after a little burn and going a little anaerobic, add in a little nausea I made sure that I was sitting and could breath before I passed. It's important to make sure that you didn't "look" like you had worked to catch them.

Wednesday, I caught all four, although one was a long chase. He had passed two of others before I did and was catching the same traffic lights I did. I finally caught him on a longer railway grade only to find that he had seen me coming and tried to stay ahead, but burned out going up the false incline (we both caught the next light red). Even Thursday I caught a couple.

About half of these are either on fixed gears like I am or on road-converted-mountain bikes. The other half are on road or cross bikes, so there is a range of speeds and abilities that I'm passing. The downside to all of them is that I moderately to greatly increase my pace to catch them. This is taking me off my new pacing that I have set for myself.

Of course the worst part of whole week is I ended sick. I couldn't breath and couldn't do anything without coughing so there wasn't any riding for me on Friday or this weekend. I hope to be back at it Monday.

What this is all about

RAAM 2018. That’s what this is all about.
Race Across America. 3000 miles. 100,000 feet of climbing. 12 days.
Right now I have the dream, the desire. My hope is to take that and turn it into a reality. My hope is to race and finish RAAM in 2018.
8 years. It seems like a long time. It doesn’t seem long enough.
I will use this blog to plan, examine, report and track my progress to completing my dream.
I say my dream, but it is more of an “our dream”. None of it would be possible without the support of my wonderful family. My beautiful, talented wife has agreed to follow me on this slightly crazy quest (although I think she views it as more then slightly crazy).
It means there will be lots of planning, lots of training. I will set interim goals. I will create the lists of “to dos”. I will document every step and every stage until 2018.
My first goal: keep this blog updated.
Scott, 10/26/10.